


a motley crew, a rodeo

by The_Resurrection_3D



Category: Fangbone! (Cartoon)
Genre: But mostly fluff, Canon-Typical Violence, Drabble Collection, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Light Angst, No Plot/Plotless, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-20 03:05:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14251698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Resurrection_3D/pseuds/The_Resurrection_3D
Summary: 'But oh, don't cha know how it goes?We are all walking each other home.'A collection of Fangbone! drabbles, taking place before, during, and after the show.





	1. Beach Episode

**Author's Note:**

> First: yes, I am still working on the next (well, three) chapter(s) for The Gentleman's Guide. Right now my word count is at 9k, so needlessly to say, it's taking awhile to edit. I've also been swamped with school, so I decided to take a break by filling out some drabble prompts.
> 
> Song: 'Family' by Mother Mother. Look me in the eyes and tell me this doesn't fit the show. 
> 
> Some of these will have implied FangBill, but right now nothing major. 
> 
> Notes and tags will be added as the need arises.
> 
> Feel free to leave prompts either in the comments or in my ask box! (the-resurrection-3d.tumblr.com)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just some wholesome Cid/Fangbone/Bill bonding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a request from tumblr user grodyego!

**_“Bill!”_ **

Said Bill nearly dislocates his shoulder as Fangbone yanks forward, ignoring his friend’s face-plant to instead passionately stab his finger towards the horizon. “You did not tell me your world had Skullbanian sea races!”

Bill, spitting the sand out of his mouth, props himself up on the one arm not currently in Fangbone’s grasp and follows his eyes, out to the vague outline of a woman being dragged behind a shiny crimson boat.

Well, it’s not  _that_  weird, he supposes – people race on water skis all the time, don’t they?

Cid, pulling herself from the shadows of the lifeguard’s stand, helps Bill to his feet. “It’s called water skiing,” he says as he peels Fangbone’s fingers off his wrist. “What’s it like in Skullbania?”

“Two mighty warriors compete to see who is the fastest,” He cries, spinning ‘round to rattle Bill by the shoulders, “while dragging the rest of their clan behind them!”

“With what?”

A quirked eyebrow. “With a rope between their teeth,” comes the response. “What else would they use?”

As he turns back to further assess his inspiration (who has by now fallen, much to her drunken friends’ delight), Bill looses a little sigh and says softly, affectionately, “I don’t know why I’m surprised by him anymore.”

“I dunno why you are either,” Cid quips back. She leans herself against Bill’s bare shoulder, the brim of her wide sunhat knocking against him as she adds, “ _Aaand_ he’s already gone.”

Bill glances back at the empty air where Fangbone used to be – at the trail of tracks cutting across the sands, their creator already lost in the forest of tents and identical tri-colored umbrellas.

“Think he’ll forget we need boards?” he asks.

“Barbarians probably think it’s beneath them to use anything other than the heads of sea dragons or whatever.”

Bill has to entertain the possibility – after all, weren’t Fangbone’s chest and cheeks donned with whorls of violet paint, still convinced that Skullbania’s love of beaches (“All the better for feeding one’s enemies to krakens and thundersnakes!”) matched with Earth’s? Had it not taken at least half an hour to convince him that sunburns were not simply tests by Grom to be endured?

“Wonder how long it’ll take him to notice Earth’s distinct lack of sea dragons?”

“He’ll substitute ‘em with sharks.”

“That is true.”

But a few minutes later, Fangbone returns, bearing – to Bill’s wide-eyed amazement – merely two surfboards, one under each arm, and a long stretch of rope already clasped tie between his teeth.

Bill is about to ask where he acquired them when a cry goes up in the distant, barely audile above the crashing waves of life and the gentle sea.

Grabbing Fangbone’s arm, then, Bill tries to pull him towards the ocean, footsteps heavy in the thick piles of sand – but Fangbone pulls him back.

Cid raises an eyebrow as the barbarian boy spits out the rope, letting it drape across his clavicle like a necklace.

Raises it higher still as she fully assesses the picture and realizes that long strip of yellow is behind held out to  _her._

“Are you not coming with us, Cid?” Fangbone asks. “I acquired a board of surf for you as well.”

“I thought you said you were supposed to pull your  _clan_  behind you?”

Fangbone tosses a board towards her, Cid narrowly escaping a broken nose as she jumps back and catches it against her frame.

“You are not Mighty Lizard Clan,” Fangbone says. “That is true. However, by participating in the defeat of Drool, you are now Mighty Lizard Clan… _adjacent,_ shall we say?”

“For a second, I was worried you were gonna say “in spirit.”” Cid raises the board above her head, flashing a smile that still manages to glint, even under all those shadows. “Because I was about to  _really_ hurt your feelings.”

Instead, she interrupts his lecture about the mere three emotions Barbarians possess with a cry of  _“Last one in sucks rotten eggs!”_ and flurry of movement – more shoving, more playful shouts going up as she and Bill half-drag, half-are-dragged-by their remaining friend into that cool cerulean.

 


	2. “If a zombie bit you, I’d be heartbroken, but I’d also shoot you twice in the head.”

“Y’know – mercy-kill you.”

“Would you also burn as many of my unholy comrades as possible with my corpse when you perform my funeral rites?” Fangbone asks, not looking away from his grindstone as the sparks fly.

Bill turns the page of his comic book. “Of course.”

The grindstone slows; barely a few seconds after, Fangbone is gently pulling the book away from Bill’s face, gesturing wildly until Bill watches him kneel, forehead resting atop the pommel of his newly-sharpened sword.

“That is all that I can ask for, Battle Brother—uh, Tee Em. Did I do it correctly?”

“You did it fantastically.”


	3. “I want my best friend back.” - “Kevin is over there.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill doesn't know why he puts up with so much, sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one takes place during the episode "The Leg of Episode" is probably the most overtly FangBill of this first batch.
> 
> Basically the barbarian version of the "Oh, haven't you heard?" meme

_“I want my best friend back,”_ Bill hisses, despite the tremendous effort he’s putting into keeping his voice calm and even.

Fangbone, still slumped onto the arm-rest of his wheelchair, simply stabs his sword in the direction of the body trying to look busy in the corner of Cavebania. Robert? Dibby? Stacy? – he’d stopped paying attention long ago, his mind narrowing in on the itch under his blasted cast, and how he’s _this close_ to catching rapid-onset hovelfroth if they don’t –

Bill slaps his hand down besides Fangbone’s elbow, leaning into a glare.

Fangbone weakly waves his sword again, grousing, “Your _friend_ is over there.”

“What? We not friends anymore because I won’t let you break your leg into a million more pieces?”

“Do not be ridiculous, Bill,” Fangbone returns, trying to resist the urge to break his leg into so many more pieces that he can slither it out of this white prison like a snake. “We are not merely _friends;_ we are battle brothers. That is completely different.”

He tries to slip his blade underneath the hardened shell; Bill pulls his hand away, earning a barked, “It _itches!”_

“Let me help you then, _battle brother.”_ Bill rummages around in his backpack for a few seconds, ere pulling out a ruler. “Try this; at least then you won’t cut yourself up as badly.”

Fangbone snatches it away and goes to work.

A heartbeat pause – then two, four, six.

“What do you mean battle brothers aren’t friends?”

Fangbone glances up at him with what, for the first time today, even _resembles_ a pleasant look. “Oh, you truly do not know?”


	4. “You don’t believe in an afterlife?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill voices a few concerns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Descriptions of torture and lots of edge, because I just can never help myself.
> 
> Skullbanians be wild, what can I say? So yeah, rating is teen for this one chapter.

“Well, I used to, anyway,” Bill says, rolling onto his side to better face Fangbone. “My mom’s not very religious, so she’s never really talked about that stuff with me.”

The birds are chirping, the sun is shining, cozy warm, and here these two young boys are, talking about death.

“Do – well, _did,”_ Bill tries to start again, but Fangbone interrupts with a slight turn of his head.

“It is still so hard to get used to, is it not?” he asks.

“Yeah,” comes Bill’s reply. “I can tell because you keep checking for your satchel.”

“I do not!”

“You’re doing it now.”

And so he was. Fangbone sheepishly flops the offending hand over his stomach, then, as if thinking better of it, rolls onto his own side to meet Bill’s gaze.

A strange look passes over Bill’s eyes as they drop to the ground, watching a worm inch along in the grass. Bill pokes it, gently pressing down and feeling its harsh recoil – its life – as he says, “So Drool’s getting executed on Saturday, huh?”

“Indeed he is!” Fangbone rasps the ground with his fist as a smile overtakes his face. “And then we shall have the feast of all feasts to celebrate!”

A silence unfurls.

“Do you not wish to share in our glory, Bill? You were more than happy to, last time.”

“Yeah, but last time was different; it didn’t feel real, y’know? It almost felt like I’d just pushed him into – I dunno – a locker or something and then forgot about him. I didn’t _cut off_ his head or anything.”

Those two words are meant to hang in the air, but they don’t for long, because Fangbone quickly explains that no, in Skullbania they don’t use such paltry methods as beheading – a _true traitor’s_ _death_ is to be torn limb-from-limb by the offended parties, which in foul Drool’s case will mean that everyone in all the clans will have the opportunity to remove an inch of him. One by one.

Slowly.

Over the course of days.

During which he is given no food of water, sans ur—

“Bill, why do you look so ill?”

“Can we please talk about something else?”

“But you must know your duties come the end of the trial, for we are to remove Drool’s eyes!”

**_“Why?”_ **

Fangbone’s hand instinctively clasps tight on Bill’s arm, as if convinced he’s about to run away. “So that he cannot find his memories again in the Night Lands! What greater punish could there be?”

Bill flops onto his back, a harsh rictus contorting his features as Fangbone scoots over, moving the hand up to his friend’s shoulder. “My apologies if I have upset you, Bill. But Drool has done too much evil to _not_ deserve whatever justice the clans dole out.”

“It’s just…” Bill interrupts himself with a sigh. “That’s not even really what I’m upset about. I mean, I kinda am, because even though I know Drool tried to kill us and take over both our worlds, he doesn’t have any magic _at all_ anymore. He said so himself! So it just feels weird to go so overboard killing someone who’s harmless now.”

 _“That_ is not what is upsetting you?”

“Not as much, anyway. It’s just…well, at first the Night Lands don’t seem so bad, but then, once you lose all your memories, it’s like you’ve died _twice._ ” Here Bill rolls over, voice coated with fear as he places his own hand atop the one still gripping him. “You’re gonna _forget_ me. And what if I go to the Night Lands, too? We’ll forget each other, and our parents and friends, and – _everything_.”

“Yet, if you recall,” Fangbone says, “Drool’s memories were not merely lost; they survived on their own – and who is to stop us from meeting again in the Night Lands and making new memories?

Here Fangbone pulls Bill’s hand into both of his own, grip tight, and says with absolute certainty, “I am not afraid to die so long as I know a part of me will always remember you.”


	5. "actually...I just miss you"

"Oh,” Bill yawns, his eyes barely open enough to register the small barbarian perched on his windowsill like a gargoyle. “Then I can scoot over if you want.”

Fangbone slips down from the windowsill, his movements conspicuously slow, voice soft. “The floor will be fine.”

Bill is, however, much to tired to ponder these observations. Rather he flops back into his bed, holding a brief thumbs-up ere he twists and stuffs his face into his pillow.

Fangbone curls up on the floor, staring up at the new glow-in-the-dark stars that adorn the ceiling. He asks what the patterns mean, but Bill merely murmurs “’snothing,” and nuzzles deeper into that strange feather-sack.

Fangbone squeezes his satchel, just to make sure the toe is still there.

He wants to ask Bill what his work of home means - the incantations make no sense, produce no effect when chanted aloud. He wants to ask about the tiny tornado Mom of Bill had conjured in her kitchen that morning, how her witchcraft could cause such a terrible noise he'd been sure his head would burst. 

Why are the snarlwolves so small, so pink and practically hairless?

Why did nurse of school so bitterly insist he don a shirt and pants, no matter how many times he’d tried to explain how they would only impede him in battle?

Why …

No, that one is unthinkable. Besides, Clan Leader Axebear has already given his reasoning - a gesture Fangbone knew he did not deserve - but that comforting, deep voice feels so far away as he stares at the stars so long they begin to ripple.

Bill rolls over, one arm flopping off the side of his bed. Fangbone finds his fingers slipping over Bill’s hand, which seems to catch them for a moment and instinctively tightens, if only a little.

They finish their climb to Bill's wrist and try not to grip too hard. Bill's own form a loose, cool grip on Fangbone's feverish skin. 

“None of this makes any sense,” he finds himself whispering to the winds. His eyes wander back to his and Bill’s gentle hold, at the fingers that outnumber all their days together. 

And yet…

He gives a squeeze; Bill’s eyelids flutter, muffled nonsense whisper.

Even if nothing else makes sense, this one he will let slide.


End file.
